


the master lives

by classicalreader313



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Flashbacks, Gen, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-05-21 05:47:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6040528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/classicalreader313/pseuds/classicalreader313
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look inside Ahsoka's mind when she first senses Anakin as Darth Vader.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“The Force is strong with him.”

Hera is beside her and Kanan sits in a seat near the back of the cockpit. Ahsoka can feel his presence in the Force even as she focuses all her attention towards the fighter spinning in open space, evading all of their shots. Something in the technique seems familiar. As much as Hera tries to match the mystery pilot’s maneuvers, she keeps falling short. The atmosphere is rife with tension and the great power undulating through space and washing over Ahsoka.

“Kanan, let’s find out how strong.”

“How can I help?” he asks. He is unsure and lacks confidence in his abilities.

“Just remember your training.”

She can feel his hand on her shoulder as she reaches through the Force, but it feels distant, as if her body isn’t really hers. His own power joins hers. She can feel the pilot’s powerful Force signature, feels it washing over her in waves, but his mind seems blocked. She just can’t get in.

“There’s something familiar.” Ezra’s voice fills the cockpit.

Ahsoka picks up on that familiarity too. It’s on the tip of her tongue, something she just can’t place. She feels Kanan’s flickering focus behind her. She senses Hera’s frustration as she wrestles with the controls of the  _ Ghost.  _ But more than anything, she feels the presence in the Force. She hasn’t felt it for a long time, and she wracks her brain, trying to place it.

Ventress? Maul?

And then, suddenly, the barrier that was keeping her from reaching into the pilot’s mind breaks. Ahsoka feels a chill as pent up emotions wash over her. Fear. Anger. Sadness. Hatred. It feels familiar. She feels a presence she knew from long ago, but this time amplified tenfold. Back then, it was always suppressed. Restrained. She feels she knows who the pilot is, but she can’t believe it.

She is a young girl once again. The darkness of the tunnel surrounds her. The city is behind her, her outline dark against the brilliant lights. Before her is the figure of a man. Her master. He’s worried for her. He cares about her. He doesn’t want her to go.

Rain pelting down outside pools at the bottom of the tunnel and cold creeps into Ahsoka’s bones. The fear radiating off of her reflects that of her master. She can sense his desperation and his despair. They have never been more connected than they are in this moment, but at the same time never farther apart. They both know that here they can decide either to take the same path, or to go their separate ways.

Ahsoka backs towards the precipice. She can’t stay.

_ “I would never let anyone hurt you, Ahsoka. Never!” _

As much as she would love to forget that night and the circumstances surrounding it, she never wants to forget those words. She never wants to forget the care in her master’s eyes as he swears to protect her.

Now, however, all she feels is searing pain in her skull. It feels like her brain is being split in pieces. A presence that she so long assumed to be dead is back, tearing her apart from the inside.

She is falling. She jumped. As she lands, she looks up through the pouring rain. She sees her master looking down at her. He is afraid. He wishes things could be different.

So does she.

Then, brilliant, blinding light. The sunset by the Jedi Temple. In all these years, she’s never been back to Coruscant. She thinks sadly that it’s probably been destroyed. Her master is running after her. He doesn’t understand.

Ahsoka doesn’t either. She just knows she has to get away from these people who don’t trust her. As intensely as she feels the sting of her friend’s betrayal, she has to admit that Barriss was right. There is no place for her among the Jedi Council.

They are outlined in the light of the setting sun. Master and Padawan. He looks hurt and confused. She feels his emotions stirring violently underneath his paper thin skin. He has always felt so strongly. His fears threaten to pull her under, beat against her with their unrelenting tide.

But she has to go. As she walks away, she hears his voice in her head, calling to her through the Force.

_ I failed you, Ahsoka. _

But no, she failed him.

She remembers the final day for the Jedi. She felt the suffering through the Force, the betrayal. It was like hundreds of voices crying out at once and being suddenly, forcefully silenced. And she was worlds away, far removed from the pain.

She felt guilty. Master Plo, Aayla Secura, Luminara, Master Gallia: all of them gone, as well as countless others. It could have been her. Maybe it should have been her.

She mourned her master. If she had stayed maybe she could have kept him safe. If she had convinced him to leave the order with her he would still be alive.

Ahsoka heard later that Obi-Wan and Master Yoda had survived. She held out hope that her master was alive as well, but she soon abandoned it. She reached out for him through the Force, but she could no longer sense him. He was gone.

She is brought back to the present moment. The pilot is calling to her through the Force. He knows her name. She feels sick inside. She knows who it is. But it can’t be. It can’t be true. She doesn’t want it to be true.

Then, a voice in her head.

_ “The apprentice lives.” _

Suddenly, she is back in the ship, her eyes blown wide. She sees the TIE fighter in open space in front of them. She knows the pilot is Anakin. But at the same time it’s not. It’s her old master, but shrouded in the same kind of aura that surrounded Ventress and Dooku.

It is her master gone to the dark side.

It’s all too much. His voice in her head, the feeling that she’s being split in two. She grows dizzy. She can’t keep her eyes open. She blacks out, falling backwards from her seat.

_ No! _


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took forever whoops but here it is  
> hope you enjoy!

She looks before her, out the window and deep into space, allowing the cold to seep into her. Space travel always fills her bones with a deep chill. In the Clone Wars, she could keep the feelings at bay. Back then adrenaline pumped in her veins and she was surrounded by her friends. But now, small in her seat, Ahsoka feels so alone.

Behind her, Kanan and Ezra walk in. 

“Are you okay?” Ezra asks. He doesn’t understand what just happened, but he knows it’s big. From the look on Kanan’s face, he is confused as well. Neither of them should be here in this war. Ahsoka turns to face them with a mournful smile on her face.

“I am, thank you,” she answers. It’s not true, and she can tell it does nothing to soothe the two Force wielders before her. “I wanted to ask about the Sith lord you encountered on Lothal.”

She listens as Kanan speaks. One part sticks out to her. “The fear… the anger… the hate.” Each word feels like a personal attack against her. Her gut twists as she becomes even more certain. “You felt it. I haven’t sensed a presence like that since-”

“The Clone Wars,” she interrupts, voice cold.

Kanan agrees.

“Ahsoka, do you know who or what he is?” It’s Ezra now, blue eyes flashing curiously. She sees her reflection in them. Her own face looks sad.

She pauses a moment before saying, “No.” She looks down to study her hands. “I don’t.” Ahsoka turns back to look out the window. Even cold, dark space is better than meeting their inquisitive eyes. 

She knows it was Anakin, but she couldn’t say it. She looks back to Kanan. She didn’t remember him much from the Temple- she spent most of her time on the frontlines after all. Like all the younglings in the Temple, however, she knew he must’ve been familiar with her master. She knew the reputation that came hand in hand with the name Anakin Skywalker, and she didn’t want to ruin it for him.

All the younglings in the Temple had looked up to him. They had followed his story closely and whispered about him together when they were supposed to be meditating. The older ones, close themselves to becoming padawans, told her all about him. They told her about how heroic lightsaber duels and his expert piloting skills. They told her about his metal arm and about the time he saved Senator Amidala. Ahsoka listened intently, enraptured. All of the younglings wanted to be his padawan. They wanted to be just like him.

When Ahsoka became his padawan, she had achieved what all of her friends so keenly desired. And indeed she had become so much like her master. She saw the echoes of his influence within her everyday. 

She can still reach out to him through the Force, and she knows that he is scared and angry. He knows she is alive, and while she is relieved that he is unharmed, Ahsoka realizes that he must want her dead.

Behind her, she hears the rest of the crew come to join them. She looks back and watches how they interact with each other, all smiles. Her heart aches as she realizes she’ll never fit in with them. Her own family is gone. 

Anakin, Master Kenobi, Master Plo, Rex, Senator Amidala. That’s all in her past.

Once again she is filled with sharp stabs of guilt, same as she has felt every day since walking away from the Order. Even as she descended the steps at the front of the Temple she couldn’t help but wonder if she was making the wrong choice.

Then, she could’ve turned back. The look on her master’s face begged her to reconsider. Every step she took away from him hurt.

Maybe she could’ve prevented him from becoming this monster. She thought back to the day when the Order fell. The Force had never before roared so loud in her mind. She didn’t think it ever would. It had poisoned her stomach with a churning, sinking feeling.

She sinks back in her seat, burdened, the truth a heavy weight pulling her down.

Her master was always good to her, but she should have known it was coming. All throughout her apprenticeship, she could feel the darkness that hung over him, waiting in the wings, ready to take over. The Clone Wars had taken a toll on him, like it had on all of them.

Ahsoka remembered how he would come back from the High Council Chamber, worked up and angry. He complained that the Council didn’t trust him, and Ahsoka could tell that deeper than that, he didn’t trust himself. Even Master Kenobi, who was closer to him than nearly anyone, seemed on edge around him.

Anakin had been brilliant, and he had been terrifying. He was a cunning general and a skilled pilot, but he took things too far, and Ahsoka was the one to pull him back to the light. She shuddered to think what he had done when she had left. He was impulsive and undisciplined. His emotions were a stormy sea that never calmed. He was always swept up in one extreme or another.

Even when they meditated, his thoughts ran a mile a minute. Ahsoka tried to focus on emptying her mind, but it was hard with Anakin next to her. If she had stayed with the Order, she wondered if she would have joined him when he went to the dark side. They were so alike, and she had no clue what evil she was truly capable of.

She thinks back to Kanan and Ezra, looking so worried for her and so unsure. They shouldn’t be here. It’s not their battle.

It’s hers.

This is her master, and it’s her war to fight.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! If you did, please leave a comment.  
> I should have the second part up soon.


End file.
